Let’s Not Make Small Talk

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Let’s not make small talk.

Not me and not you.

Others can serenade us with the changing of weather– what is blowing in and what’s moving out, but I am craving the whole of your mind. I want to know what you think when you’re alone; when it is three am and the chaos of the day has tapered down, when the silence of the night overcomes you, when you’re left in a wasteland of your unrelenting thoughts – I want to know where your mind goes when it wanders.

Tell me your deepest desires. Tell me your unseemly hopes. Let’s not get carried away with the trivialities, you and I. There’s only so many years we have left before the sun explodes into the sky and the earth is reduced to a pulp and you and I are nothing more than small, forgotten blips on the Universe’s radar, so let’s make the time we have count.

I want to know every inch of you. Tell me the things that you’re too afraid to hope for, tell me the times when you got it all wrong. Talk to me about the first day that the world opened up for you and the first time it ever boxed you in. Let me know what makes you feel wide awake when you are running on three hours of sleep and what makes you feel hopelessly small. I want to know who you are when your psyche is not paying attention: I want to read the subtleties that trace their way through your words.

So bear with me here, for a moment. Stop wondering what I’m getting at. Tell me the first time you ever felt crazy – when your own perceptions drove you half mad. I want to know what about your own mind you question, which avenues you’re scared to go down. Tell me who you’re afraid you could become if you were given the chance to run rampant, tell me who you’ve turned yourself into instead.

I’m not afraid of the darknesses you harbour, you see, I’m holding them too. It’s just that we don’t usually cover this in small talk – by the way, who have you been at the worst of times? What is your greatest regret?

I know there’s poison that runs through your bloodstream, there’s chaos that lives in your soul. I know that there’s more to your story – an infinite melody of sorrows that carved out their homes inside your bones and a whirlwind of passion in your smile. I want to know what brought you up to your worst moment. What helped you back to the light. I want to discover the parts of you that you’ve been fighting to keep hidden, fearing that there is no home for the madness of your mind.

See, I could ask you the everyday questions.

How’s it going?

How’s the family?

What’ve you been up to this week?

But to do so would be a disservice – not just to you or me, but to humanity as a whole.

You see, we just don’t get too many people with minds such as the one you possess – with thoughts that whirr and hopes that soar and theories that swell and nearly burst out of their bearings while they fight to tumble out of your mind.

We do not get too many people who can enchant and enthrall and enthuse us with their ramblings alone – with minds that can transport and words that can stir.

So it would simply be a waste, you see, to ask you how you’re doing. Or where you’re going. Or what you think of the latest big-screen feature.

In the drought of interpersonal pleasantries,

Baby, your thoughts are a wildfire.

And I’m ready to burn this place down.